No rights for apes in New
Zealand – The New Zealand legislature will not extend legal rights
to great apes after a parliamentary committee there studied and rejected
a proposal by the Great Ape Project to amend an Animal Welfare Bill to
grant such rights. “We do not agree with the proposed great apes rights
amendment as it would change the intent and approach of the bill from
welfare to rights,” said Eric Roy, chairman of the committee that decided
to reject the Great Ape Project bill.
Meat eating and evolution
– A study by University of California Berkeley anthropology professor
Katharine Milton suggests that the addition of meat to the diets of early
proto-humans was essential in influencing homo sapiens evolutionary development
toward the big brains we all know and love. According to Milton, “Without
meat, it’s unlikely that proto-humans could have secured enough energy
and nutrition from the plants available in their African environment at
that time to evolve into the active sociable, intelligent creatures they
became.”
Milton arrived at her conclusion
by comparing the digestive physiology of primates, noting that those primates
primarily reliant on vegetation tend to be sedentary and relatively sluggish
such as the orangutan and the gorilla, whereas those that also include
meat in their diet, such as the chimpanzee, are extremely active food
gatherers.